Third Party tools/Converters

[slideshow]

I only joined the forum this week & this is my 1st posting so I hope I get it right. I have been using PTE since version 4.4 many years ago. I have done a few basic slide shows but in recent years have turned to video films using Magix Edit Pro 17 Plus and Serif Movie X5. I like to ‘ring the changes’ and have a change. I am now using PTE v7.0. I am not bothered that this will not burn my DVD because I have been a fan of Nero for nearly 10 years and always used that with no failures. However, I now have Win 7 Ultimate and my version of Nero will not run. I am not going to buy Nero just to do the odd slide show so I have tried downloading the following free burning programs with no success whatsoever:- Ashampoo Burning Studio, Free Disc Burner, Express Burn, DVD Author Plus, Imgburn, and CD Burner XP, DVD Styler, & DVD Flick. I downloaded Cyberlink Power to Go 8, being a trail version for 15 days and had partial success. The DVD’s only played for half their length and then stopped. I know nothing about codecs but have installed the K-Lite Codec pack 895 Full, just in case my video editing programs need them. Am I flogging a dead horse because if I am then I will use my nearly 10 year old PC with XP and Nero in there. However, it would be nice to be able to use my new PC.

Ann in Wales. (Silver surfer).

[Guest Yachtsman1]

Have you just up-dated the basic PTE or bought the De-lux version which has its own video builder. I recently up-dated from 6.5 & decided to go De-lux for the video builder & the other facilities such as YouTube etc. Cost about £30 for two years.

Yachtsman1.

[fh1805]

Moderator note:

This might be in the wrong part of the forum. If Ann decides not to go down the PTE Deluxe route, then it needs to be moved to the Equipment and Software section. For now, I'm prepared to wait on Ann's reply.

Peter

[davegee]

Ann,

Have you considered the possibility of a compatibility issue between your new burner and your "old" DVD player?

Also the quality of the DVDs you are using together with the above might be an issue. Just because a certain brand has always worked before doesn't mean............

I would have thought that a codec problem would result in a complete failure to play and not in the "stopping half way through" issue?

Like you I have always used third party burning software to burn DVDs from PTE shows.

Up to now ROXIO has served me well. Having migrated to a new W7 PC I found that the supplied free version of Power To Go did the job very well.

My method:

Let PTE make the ISO file. I have always thought that having successfully done this any further problems would be attributable to outside influences and not to PTE. Someone is bound to jump in quickly if my assumption is wrong!

I have always used completely default settings in PTE and never worried about codecs etc. Just double clicking on the ISO has always brought up the correct module of the burning software which I had installed and now uses Power to Go in the same way as it used Roxio in the past.

There are softwares available which will play ISO files on the computer if you want to be absolutely sure that you have no issues with PTE.

For my own use I produce MPEG4 files to play via USB on my TV but there are always occasions when you want to give DVDs to others. I had to do this recently and the above method worked fine using Sony DVDs on a Sony DVD Player.

DG

[slideshow]

First of all thanks for all your suggestions, but my answer to the moderator & Yatchsman1 is that I do not want to purchase PTE deluxe. For 1 or 2 slideshows a year it is not cost effective to a thrifty pensioner. Both my husband and I make video films so we can easily do slide shows in the 2 video editing programs that we use but as I have said, I like a change. Also I am in an advanced digital imaging group who have just got interested in PTE so with my bit of experience and using Nero, I am helping where I can.

To davegee, perhaps I did not fully explain about the play back of the 2 partially successful discs. They played in my DVD burner and in my DVD player under my TV and failed at exactly the same point, namely about half way through.

I always use Class 1 Verbatim DVD’s with the ID code MCC03RG20. I use Nero CD Speed 5 for checking all DVD’s for the burn content. Nero shows my one DVD as only 3min 1 sec long and it stops checking at 58.5% so it is roughly half way when it should have been 5 mins 54 secs long.

My version of PTE does not allow me to make an ISO file. I have been using PTE’s own codec which has always worked perfectly with Nero in my XP PC so maybe that is what I shall have to do, forget WIN 7 and go back to XP.

Thank you all again.

Ann in Wales.

[fh1805]

Moderator note:

Ann,

Thank you for clarifying your position. I have now moved the topic.

Peter

[potwnc]

"I have tried downloading the following free burning programs with no success whatsoever:- Ashampoo Burning Studio, Free Disc Burner, Express Burn, DVD Author Plus, Imgburn, and CD Burner XP, DVD Styler, & DVD Flick."

"I have been using PTE’s own codec"

Ann, with the PTE codec PTE does not create a "real" video file, but a "virtual" one instead. It may be that all the above free burning programs cannot read the virtual .avi file correctly, or that they can't turn the virtual .avi file into the format needed to burn a DVD. Before you give up I'd advise you to try using a different codec (which will be a trial-and-error process) to produce a true video file then try to import that into a DVD authoring program, then burn the output of that DVD authoring program. If you still have no success contact me privately via the forum's message service and I'll try to help you further.

Ray